Play Expo will be entering its 3rd successive year as one of the largest gaming events in UK this October. Expected to draw crowds of up to 25,000, Play Expo is known not only for it’s coverage of new and upcoming AAA titles and hardware, but for it’s expansive support and exposure for Indie studios – the first fourteen of which have been confirmed for the line-up! The exhibition boasts five in-house divisions that offer all factions of gaming a precisely tailored supportive environment to demo and showcase their work – Re.Play, Now.Play, Pro.Play, Cos.Play and Screen.Play.
The popularity of indie games has exploded in the past few years, and has been gaining new ground daily. Play Expo offers an amazing opportunity for devs to showcase their work to thousands of gamers in dedicated indie spaces that make up some of the biggest draws of the convention. Andy Brown, director at Replay Events responsible for Play Expo said,
“We are overwhelmed by the support the indie game community has shown our expo this year. The indie zone was a very popular feature at our Play Blackpool show in May as well as at Play Expo last year so we wanted to build on that momentum for this October’s show which is shaping up to be our best yet!”
The current indie line-up for the convention includes Fully Illustrated‘s Wulverblade, one of the first 25 titles confirmed for Xbox’s brand new ID@XBOX, the ‘Independent Developers Publishing Program for Xbox One’. Michael Heald, owner of Fully Illustrated discussed his anticipation for bringing the title to the Play Expo floors,
“Wulverblade is a HD 2D side scrolling beat-em-up that aims to revive this lost genre and bring the classic arcade gameplay to the next generation on Xbox One – we’re proud to say that Wulverblade was selected as one of the first 25 ID@Xbox titles to appear on the new system! We’re hoping to be able to bring both a taster of the campaign itself as well as a ‘survive as long as you can’ arena mode to Play Expo and we can’t wait to get people’s feedback!”
The full list of indie titles confirmed to date are:
Boneloaf – Gang Beasts
Fully Illustrated – Wulverblade
Lamplight Studios – A Pixel Story
Mechabit – Kaiju Panic
Payload Studios – TerraTech
Hidden Armada – Mutiny!
Utopian World of Sandwiches – Chompy Chomp Chomp Party
Leda Entertainment – Bopscotch
Application Systems – Ghost Control
Application Systems – Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet
Cinemaware – Wings: Remastered Edition
Dojo Arcade – Creature Battle Lab
Tall Studios – Shoot ‘Em Up Kit
ProjectorGames – Dungeon Crawler
ProjectorGames – Fortress Craft: Evolved
Strategic Designs – Starters Orders
I’ll be circulating at the event, so keep an eye out and I’ll hope to see you there! You can follow me on Twitter at @Auseil to get updates and track me down at the show. Play Expo 2014 opens doors at Event City, Manchester, UK 11th-12th October – you can grab your tickets here http://www.playexpo.net/tickets/
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